Fire Patricia Kaliati—MCP

Tom Sangala July 16, 2015

419 2 minutes read

Opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) has called on President Peter Mutharika to reshuffle his Cabinet and fire Minister of Gender Patricia Kaliati for bringing government into disrepute.

Mutharika, speaking through his Press Secretary Gerald Viola has, however, dismissed the calls describing them as impossible while Kaliati has also scoffed at MCP for suggesting her removal from Cabinet.

MCP Publicity Secretary Jessie Kabwila said yesterday during a press briefing at its headquarters in Lilongwe that Kaliati has to go because during a rally that Mutharika conducted last week in Thyolo, she called the MCP president a village idiot who shoots off at his mouth on anything.

Kabwila also claimed that Kaliati said that Chakwera being like the Biblical Lazarus who was raised from the dead, should wait for the next life in order to become a leader.

“We call on President Arthur Peter Mutharika to quickly think of reshuffling his Cabinet. People of Kaliati’s calibre are just going to decampaign him. They are not going to help his government. He needs to seriously think: is it worth it having this minister in his Cabinet?” argued Kabwila.

She said this is not the first time that Kaliati has embarrassed the country.

“She (Kaliati) needs to go for an urgent IQ check. Can she really hold a ministry if the best she can do is to insult people? As a woman leader I am honestly very worried that we once again have a woman who instead of making a case for women empowerment she is actually reducing it,” added Kabwila.

She said the attention that is being paid on MCP and Chakwera illustrates that the DPP government by its own admission knows that it has failed Malawians.

“If they can get on the podium and the best they can do is shower insults, it illustrates one thing; they know that they are not the people who were chosen by Malawians,” she said.

She also said speaking as not only publicity secretary of the MCP but also chair of women caucus in Parliament, Kaliati should remember that whenever a woman has a position, she should use it responsibly.

“If you engage in insults you actually enforce the stereotype that women don’t know politics; that women are emotional people; women just shout with no facts. She should behave responsibly she is the minister of Gender and whenever she is acting people must say true women can lead. But what she did on that day pulls women down; it pulls women leaders to the ground,” she argued.

Viola however said what Kabwila and the whole MCP are doing is ridiculous.

“Dr. Jessie Kabwila is the one who should have been fired because she is very arrogant but she is now the party’s spokesperson,” he added claiming that Kabwila insults a lot.

Viola said it was insane for MCP to claim that Chakwera is ‘government’.

“So Honourable Kaliati was just urging our security personnel plus the public events to monitor that, to ensure that this thing should not happen anymore and again she was like advising Dr. Lazarus Chakwera that when the Guest of Honour, who in most cases is the President, has left the function, as somebody who is supposed to be respected as the Leader of Opposition should not condone that tendency of MCP supporters by parading something that does not exist that he himself is Boma or is the president of the country,” he said. “That’s all. She didn’t insult the MCP president she was just registering her concern.”